The invention relates generally to circuit board connectors and, more particularly, to guide pins for mechanically interconnecting circuit boards.
Modern high speed communications systems, such as cellular communications base stations, for example, typically include a primary circuit board, sometimes referred to as a mother board, and one or more peripheral circuit boards, called daughter cards. Electrical connectors establish communication between the motherboard and the daughter cards, and typically include many pin contacts which are inserted through holes in the motherboard to establish electrical contact therewith. In order to conserve space on the circuit boards, it is common to mount mother boards and daughter cards at a right angle to each other. Typically, one or more guide pins are used to mechanically link the circuit boards together. The guide pins provide preliminary alignment or preliminary guidance between the circuit boards being interconnected.
In another technique for saving board space, a feed-through type connector is used to mount components to both sides of the circuit board. The feed-through connector may include an array of male pins that extend through the circuit board with a shroud on each side forming a double ended connector. In a feed-through connection, alignment of the components must be addressed on both sides of the circuit board.
In a high speed application, such as a communications base station, some system components can be relatively large. For instance, daughter cards may be as much as three feet wide with a mating edge that is three feet long. The motherboard, typically, is stored in a cabinet or rack in a mainframe room or equipment room. In some installations, the daughter cards are mounted on tracks and are slid toward the motherboard perpendicular to the motherboard.
In such applications, guide pins are needed that provide the capability to overcome the bulk of the circuit boards and maintain the boards sufficiently aligned to provide for satisfactory mating of the electrical connectors between the circuit boards.